Just passed my driving test and really fancy an Octavia, test driving this one yesterday (really nice condition and ride). I'm at near the top end of my budget if I spend the £7.5k on it, so my concerns are with the age & mileage. The last MOT has advisories on the tyre condition and break pads starting to show signs of wear and tear. 

 

How much of a risk would you say buying a car with this age & mileage is? What sort of things should I expect to need repairs in the next year or so? 

 

Any advice appreciated.

Mileage looks fine for its age, the 1.4 TSI is a good engine and it's a nice looking car but you need to know about its previous ownership and service history before deciding anything.

1 hour ago, Tolpol62 said:

Mileage looks fine for its age, the 1.4 TSI is a good engine and it's a nice looking car but you need to know about its previous ownership and service history before deciding anything.

It's had one previous owner, the car looked in good condition in and out and there's just the advisories on the last MOT about tyres & break pads wearing. When I asked the dealer about the service history, he mentioned something about Skoda keeping it all online so to check with them but I'm not sure where to start with that...

If you get a note of the cars VIN number you could enter it into the My Skoda app* and see what comes up for service history.

If that doesn't work I'm not sure how you get it. Maybe contact Skoda UK and ask them.

*Free download in Google play store and Apple app store.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge will pop up with a better solution.

 

 

 

As it's got at least 3 different brands of tyre on it, a set of matching new tyres could be viewed as an opportunity, not a problem.

The car looks nice, the engine is a great variant, and if you contact Skoda, you should be able to get the service history on it.

 

Check that what needs to have been done at the various mileages has been done, and if it drives okay, you should be good to go.

The attached service menu should give you an indication of what should have been done, and also what you have to look forward to needing to have done.

The £449 cam-belt & £60 brake fluid changes should have been done at 50k miles, so those are good checks to make, likewise the £139 air-con service at 60k miles.

If these haven't been done, get haggling on the price.

You can change the pollen filter yourself for £10-£15, but if you don't fancy doing that, it would have been nice to have had that £35 bill taken care of for you. (No biggie if it's not been done, though.)

 

Good luck!

Edited 24 August, 20214 yr by EnterName

53 minutes ago, EnterName said:

As it's got at least 3 different brands of tyre on it, a set of matching new tyres could be viewed as an opportunity, not a problem.

The car looks nice, the engine is a great variant, and if you contact Skoda, you should be able to get the service history on it.

 

Check that what needs to have been done at the various mileages has been done, and if it drives okay, you should be good to go.

The attached service menu should give you an indication of what should have been done, and also what you have to look forward to needing to have done.

The £449 cam-belt & £60 brake fluid changes should have been done at 50k miles, so those are good checks to make, likewise the £139 air-con service at 60k miles.

If these haven't been done, get haggling on the price.

You can change the pollen filter yourself for £10-£15, but if you don't fancy doing that, it would have been nice to have had that £35 bill taken care of for you. (No biggie if it's not been done, though.)

 

Good luck!

Really helpful advice, puts the price and service history into context for me. I'm waiting on hearing back this morning for the service history so we will see what comes up. What do you reckon about the different tyres - would it be best to replace with all of the same make ASAP or just as and when needed?

Thank you.

So it has had an oil change at 28k miles (2016), then at 42k miles (2017) had a major service and brake fluid done. I'm now a bit wary of the gap in service history since then and will assume a lot of the things that should have been done haven't, like cambelt & air-con. Hmmm.

1 hour ago, AndyNUFC said:

So it has had an oil change at 28k miles (2016), then at 42k miles (2017) had a major service and brake fluid done. I'm now a bit wary of the gap in service history since then and will assume a lot of the things that should have been done haven't, like cambelt & air-con. Hmmm.

If the services were done at an independent not a Skoda dealer they almost certainly won't appear in the Skoda service history, ask to see the paperwork with the car.

2 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

If the services were done at an independent not a Skoda dealer they almost certainly won't appear in the Skoda service history, ask to see the paperwork with the car.

No paperwork has been included, so there's a gap from 2017. Not sure if it's worth risking a top end budget purchase for a car I don't know what has or hasn't had done for 4 years.

4 hours ago, AndyNUFC said:

Really helpful advice, puts the price and service history into context for me. I'm waiting on hearing back this morning for the service history so we will see what comes up. What do you reckon about the different tyres - would it be best to replace with all of the same make ASAP or just as and when needed?

Thank you.

Glad you found it useful.

What mismatched tyres tells me (rightly or wrongly), is that whoever changed the tyres either didn't know what they were doing, or didn't much care and just bunged on what seemed most suitable at the time. I'm a bit OCD with tyres, so mismatched tyres bothers me. (At least match the tyres on an axle.)

 

Judging by the tyres, I get an idea of how fussy the previous owner was about other aspects of car maintenance. If they'll put random tyres on without matching them, then I assume that they're not particularly fussy about doing things "properly" on their car. Service intervals, etc. Such people are the sort of people who ignore service intervals, dashboard warning lights, and odd noises, so long as they can still get from A to B. But it's hard to know for sure what the previous owner did, and what the garage selling the car has done to get it ready for sale as cheaply as possible.

17 hours ago, AndyNUFC said:

No paperwork has been included, so there's a gap from 2017. Not sure if it's worth risking a top end budget purchase for a car I don't know what has or hasn't had done for 4 years.

If the car runs okay, and you like it, then haggle heavily on the price based on you having to get north of £500 of the missing work done.

But follow your gut feeling on the car. If you're uhming and ahing, best to walk away.

There are lots of good examples about. No need to take a bet on a poorly serviced car.

 

EDIT: Also don't despair if you can't find a good example of what you want right away. This is just anecdotal based on my experience, but I swear the type of car you're looking for are like buses: You look around for ages and then three turn up at once.

Edited 25 August, 20214 yr by EnterName

On 24/08/2021 at 14:12, AndyNUFC said:

No paperwork has been included, so there's a gap from 2017. Not sure if it's worth risking a top end budget purchase for a car I don't know what has or hasn't had done for 4 years.

Have you made a decision on the car yet, Andy?

2 minutes ago, EnterName said:

Have you made a decision on the car yet, Andy?

Yeah I'm going to swerve it, much as I'm hoping that my first car would have been an Octavia I don't think this is the right one. For my budget, the lack of a service history doesn't give much peace of mind. I've really appreciated the advice given on the replies here to help put some context into my decision. 

6 hours ago, AndyNUFC said:

Yeah I'm going to swerve it, much as I'm hoping that my first car would have been an Octavia I don't think this is the right one. For my budget, the lack of a service history doesn't give much peace of mind. I've really appreciated the advice given on the replies here to help put some context into my decision. 

For what it's worth, I think that's a good call, given the missing service history.